Here is a fun experiment, ladies: count how many times you apologize unnecessarily a day.

You may find that you are apologizing a lot. Most of the time, for things that aren't even your fault. Someone bumps into you, you're sorry. You raise your hand in class to ask a question during the lecture, you're sorry. You need to set up a meeting with your professor to clarify something and all of the sudden, for some reason, you're sorry. Your coffee order is totally wrong, you're sorry. You are telling someone how you feel, you apologize for the inconvenience.

My sample may be flawed and biased because of my tendency to keep women closer to me in my life, but my friends, myself, my colleagues, and all of the ladies I look up to the most, all have such a negative tendency to apologize for things that are A) not our faults and B) things that just don't require any sort of apology at all.

I think that maybe I started saying it to be polite, or to show respect, but without realizing it I've lacked a respect in myself so that others could feel "better." In general, I still can't shake the fact that even some of the strongest ladies I know often continue to apologize for their strength in a room. Socially, I just think that it is clear that we have a hierarchy issue in terms of gender.

I will say this so that others can understand it for themselves too: I do not deserve to have my accomplishments undermined, nor do I deserve to underestimate myself to make someone else feel better or to build someone else up.

And although this transcends gender and has an effect on everyone, I still find it more prevalent in the women around me than the men in my life. I think that this speaks volumes on our current state of being at the moment. But I think that we're about to do better. I think that we're done apologizing for nothing and making statements about who we are rather than saying I'm sorry for existing.

For your week, ladies, take the challenge of watching yourself and stopping yourself from apologizing for doing absolutely nothing wrong.